xboxone2121Microsoft’s Xbox One posted overall record unit sales in November, with 1.2 million units sold in the U.S. — reaping the benefits of a $50 price cut to top the PlayStation 4 and Wii U in the critical early days of the 2014 holiday shopping season.

The Redmond company released those numbers this afternoon, citing statistics from the NPD market research firm. Microsoft said the Xbox One was also the top-selling console in the UK for the month.

“Response to the holiday lineup of games on Xbox One was incredible, with Xbox One fans buying more games in November in the U.S. than any other gen eight platform and enjoying over 357 million hours of gameplay globally,” said Mike Nichols, corporate vice president for Xbox marketing, in a statement.

NPD didn’t release unit sales figures for the other consoles, but said total dollar sales from video-game hardware in the U.S. declined 23 percent to just over $1 billion in November, as a result of discounting.

“While the majority of the decrease in dollar sales of hardware stemmed from an expected drop of seventh generation console sales, eighth generation sales also decreased and represented 38 percent of the total declines in hardware sales from November 2013 to November 2014,” said Liam Callahan, NPD analyst, in a statement. “Despite a decline in dollar sales, hardware unit sales for eighth generation consoles increased by 3 percent over November 2013.”

Microsoft has lots of ground to make up against Sony, with the Xbox One trailing the PS4 in cumulative worldwide sales going into the peak shopping season.

Follow-up: Xbox One vs. PS4: Can Microsoft sustain its new momentum against Sony in the console market?

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